Former ‘Daily Show’ Writer Details His Rift With Jon Stewart
By Eric Levitz, July 24, 2015 MSNBC
For more than four years, Wyatt Cenac held one of the most coveted jobs in American comedy, serving as a writer and on-air contributor for “The Daily Show.” But in 2012, Cenac quit that job, even though he had no new gig lined up to replace it. On a recent episode of Marc Maron’s “WTF” poodcast, Cenac revealed that his departure was the product of an emotionally traumatizing fight he’d had with Jon Stewart, over whether or not one of the host’s jokes was racially insensitive.
In 2011, African-American pizza magnate Herman Cain was – briefly – a leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. Among Cain’s signature policies was a proposal for all congressional bills to be limited to three pages. On “The Daily Show,” Stewart mocked the anti-intellectualism of Cain’s proposal by impersonating the candidate, saying in an approximation of Cain’s own loud, affectedly southern voice, “Bills will be three pages! If I am president, treaties will have to fit on the back of a cereal box! From now on, the State of the Union address will be delivered in the form of a fortune cookie! I am Herman Cain, and I do not like to read.”
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